Vision and Change in Institutional Entrepreneurship

Sheltered for a long time within the public sector environment with high job security and professional research autonomy, defense R&D organizations faced unprecedented challenges when government support was being withdrawn and closure threatening. They needed to be led by a suitable vision in order to implement comprehensive changes to their operations and remain viable. This study explores this constitution of vision as a mechanism of intentional change, a strategic tool to reach the desired future for the organization. Going beyond the current literature, the authors ask to what extent, and how, organizational members reconstruct vision in a way that it can support or detain change, a question of importance for management scholars as well as professional managers in both public and private organizations.

Sheltered for a long time within the public sector environment with high job security and professional research autonomy, defense R&D organizations faced unprecedented challenges when government support was being withdrawn and closure threatening. They needed to be led by a suitable vision in order to implement comprehensive changes to their operations and remain viable. This study explores this constitution of vision as a mechanism of intentional change, a strategic tool to reach the desired future for the organization. Going beyond the current literature, the authors ask to what extent, and how, organizational members reconstruct vision in a way that it can support or detain change, a question of importance for management scholars as well as professional managers in both public and private organizations.

List of Tables and Figures

Chapter 1. Introduction

• The Structure of the Book

Chapter 2. Methodology

• Data Collection
• Data Analysis
• The Role of the Researchers

Chapter 3. Conceptual Framework

• Institutional entrepreneurship: An Approach to Organizational Transformation
• Planned Change Interventions
• Organizational Vision
• Vision and Organizational Leadership
• Organizational Vision: A Facilitator of Change
• Organizational Vision: A Hindrance to Change
• Legitimacy as Practice Mechanism
• Sensemaking Accounts as Schema for Change
• Conclusions

Chapter 4. Gamma: The Evolution of Goverenmental R&D Organization

• Challenges to the Mandate for Organizational Change
• Managing Tensions
• Conclusions

Chapter 5. Survival : The Pressure for Change

• Conclusions

Chapter 6. Chang in Style, Change in Form: Regenerating the Organizational Structure

• Why Change? - The Demands of Organizational Environments
• Deploying Change at Gamma
• Conclusions

Chapter 7. The Sensemaking for Change

• Sensemaking
• Confrontational Sensemaking Accounts
• Change related sensemaking accounts
• Conclusions

Chapter 8. The Construction of Legitimacy for Change

• Competing  Legitimacy: Narratives of Founding Legacy
• Confrontational Narratives of legitimacy during change
• Reconciling Legitimacy: survival narrative
• Conclusions

Chapter 9. The envisioning Process: Building an Entrepreneurial Vision

• Building a Vision: Existing Theoretical Models
• Gamma’s Formulation of a Entrepreneurial Vision
• Conclusions

Chapter 10. The Task of Constructing Change: The Mechanism of Vision Creation

• Formation of the Survival Vision
• Creating Vision for Survival
• Constructing Strategic Vision
• Conclusions

Chapter 11. Conclusion: Vision and Change in Gamma

• Conclusions

References